


Year of the Dog

by TheLostPevensie



Category: Halsey (Musician), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: 94z forever, Canon Compliant, Confessing is Hard, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Gift Giving, Language Barrier, Late Night Conversations, Love Triangle, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Pining, Polyamory, Soft boys are soft, ashley "god i have to do everything in this relationship" nicolette frangipane, but make it sappy and cute instead of angsty and annoying, i just want you to be happy bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-08-20 04:00:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20221441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLostPevensie/pseuds/TheLostPevensie
Summary: The bond between 94 liners is deep and abiding.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [BTSPolyamFest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/BTSPolyamFest) collection. 

> **Prompt:**
> 
> Halsey/Hoseok/Namjoon  
Where the friendship bracelets mean more than friendship and how Halsey and Hoseok navigate language barriers
> 
> find me on twitter @nyoomjooon !! also i may or may not make a spotify playlist at some point idk

Halsey comes to see them at the BigHit building, late at night. Her flight has just gotten in, and Hoseok feels bad about the time-- it’s late for them too, but Halsey is probably jetlagged and exhausted. Surely she would rather be in bed than here, having to socialize with a bunch of guys who barely speak her language.

But when she exuberantly flings open the door to the artist lounge, she looks happy, excited. Like there’s no place she’d rather be. Hoseok feels himself respond to her energy, and stands up almost before he realizes he’s doing it.

“Hey, Halsey!” he whoops, letting his widest grin spread over his face. The others yell too, truly a cacophony of sound, and stand up in a rush of hurried movement. Halsey smiles even harder, and bounces further into the room.

“Hi, guys!” she says cheerfully. “How are you?”

“We’re good!” Namjoon beams, effortlessly taking the reins of the conversation as he so often has to with the English-speaking celebrities they’re meeting more and more lately. “Thanks so much for coming, you must be so tired…”

Halsey says something long and fast that Hoseok doesn’t quite catch, except that she definitely mentions… churros, for some reason. Namjoon barks out one of his surprised, happy laughs. “She says she napped in the car on the way over,” he quickly explains to them, grinning, “and even if she didn’t she still would have come, because we were all so busy that time in LA when she came over with the churros that we didn’t actually get to hang out.”

“Alright, come here,” Halsey says when Namjoon is done, “give me a real hello! I want hugs!”

Hoseok doesn’t get every word, but he definitely hears her say  _ hug, _ and she has her arms spread wide and that’s pretty clear signaling. He feels a rush of some mischievous instinct, and almost before his own brain can realize what he’s planning, he closes the distance, wraps his arms firmly around her back, and lifts her up, spinning her around in the air. Halsey squeaks and grabs his shoulders, and he keeps twirling. 

“Hi!” Hoseok grins brightly. Halsey lets her legs relax and swing out behind her, and Hoseok hears someone, Jungkook, he thinks, yelp and scoot back. 

Hoseok brings them to a stop and slides her down to the floor. She’s short, he realizes. Her presence is so much larger than life.

“Well, hi,” she says, laughing a little. Her nose scrunches when she does that. It’s cute. She… is cute. Hoseok realizes this with a vague sense of foreboding, like seeing thunderclouds on the horizon when you’re stranded in the middle of nowhere, or swimming farther out into the ocean at an unfamiliar beach, riptide lurking out of sight. Like trying to avoid the inevitable, no escape.

Then Jimin is there, tapping him on the shoulder and pouting, “Hyung, I want a hug too!” The look he gives Hoseok, as he jumps and relinquishes Halsey to Jimin, from whom she is passed between the other boys in a whirlwind of limbs and laughter, is just on the pointed side of neutral awareness.

And alright, so Hoseok has always been a little prone to crushes of the love-at-first-sight variety, and he’s never been particularly subtle. He can’t help it. He doesn’t need this judgment, thanks Jimin.

The meeting, such as it is (“So we’re doing a song, right?” asks Halsey, eyes sparkling. “Wh-- I mean-- yes! Please, oh my gosh!” blinks Namjoon, stunned. “Yes!”) quickly devolves into the kind of punch-drunk silliness that reigns when it’s late-late-late and the days have started to blur together. Hoseok is staring at Halsey. She throws her head back when she laughs, and it’s not a sweet girlish laugh either, but a full cackle. She fiddles with the straps of her tank top when she’s trying to figure out what to say. She tries her best to talk directly to the person she’s having a conversation with, instead of having a whole dialogue through Namjoon. She’s not embarrassed to make wild, enthusiastic pantomimes with her hands or her whole body to get her point across and, he thinks, save Namjoon some work.

And the way she looks at Namjoon is-- well. Hoseok knows what he probably looks like, staring and trying to seem inconspicuous, and she’s about the same. She’s trying so hard, really admirably hard, to engage equally with seven people she’s just now getting to know, most of whose conversation is filled with barbs and inside jokes in a language she doesn’t understand. But Hoseok sees the way her gaze turns to Namjoon, when he’s translating, when he’s laughing at Yoongi being ridiculous, when he’s staring off into the distance as he thinks about how to phrase something or else just-- thinking, generally, checking out to consider the universe at large and the nature of destiny, probably. He does that. And Hoseok watches Halsey watching him; her whole face softens, into a sort of wistful admiration, and she gets the tiniest little smile on her face, eyes wide. Every time Namjoon’s attention turns back to her (which is often), she snaps back to general cheerfulness.

He’s watching Namjoon too, of course, both because he has to in order to participate in the conversation and because he can’t help himself. Competence is sexy, and Namjoon is nothing if not that. Hoseok’s pre-debut crush on him never really went away, he will sometimes admit to himself in the privacy of his own mind; it just softened into something he can live with, a gentle thrum instead of a crashing cymbal. He feels kind of bad for not trying harder to get over Namjoon, but honestly he wouldn’t even know how to start. And he might feel guilty for crushing on Halsey while those feelings are still rattling around, except… it doesn’t seem like it will be a problem. It doesn’t seem like he’s even in the running.

Because Namjoon is looking back at Halsey, whenever she does her cute little pantomimes, or scrunches up her face to think, or gets engrossed in the adorable pictures of Yeontan that Taehyung loves to show literally everyone he meets. The way they keep just missing each other’s glances is a little hilarious (a little painful) to Hoseok. It kind of makes him want to lock them in Namjoon’s studio together where they don’t have a buffer and can work out the fact that they’re clearly interested in each other without a peanut gallery.

It also makes him want to lock himself in his room and have a self-pity cry at the dramatic irony of the situation, but years of watching Namjoon moon after people (and actually do something about it, unlike Hoseok, who is self-aware enough to know he is a total coward in this aspect of his life) have tempered that instinct. He mostly just acts extra loud and fun till he can go be alone, and then he does-not-sulk until Jimin comes to definitely-not-cheer-him-up-because-he’s-not-sulking-Jimin-but-thanks-anyways.

That’s neither here nor there.

Halsey says something that’s probably funny, if Namjoon’s laughter is anything to go by, and Hoseok doesn’t know what it was but he finds himself laughing too. She’s endearing. Namjoon is doubly so. Painful as it might be later, for now he finds he doesn’t even have to work to keep a smile on his face.

Namjoon doesn’t know how long it’s been when Seokjin slaps Yoongi on the shoulder as he laughs at his own joke, and realizes-- when Yoongi startles awake with a grunt and a whine of pain-- that Yoongi had fallen asleep. Yoongi tries to protest that he only dozed off, and was definitely listening up till just a moment ago, and Halsey laughs and doesn’t seem offended, but a consensus is quickly reached that they should all go sleep, them to their apartment and Halsey to her hotel, and reconvene tomorrow.

“Ahh, this sucks!” complains Halsey, though she doesn’t seem too annoyed. “I feel weirdly-- wired? I should be so exhausted, I kind of feel it hovering, but right now I’m just so hyper.” She stands up from her chair and stretches, shaking out her hair. She told a fascinated Jungkook earlier that it was a wig, and the spark in his eyes makes Namjoon a little concerned that one day the maknae will just shave off all his hair in an act of rebellion and instead buy wigs in every color on the visible spectrum. She makes it look so natural and cute, but Namjoon thinks she looked just as good with her buzzcut at the BBMAs, if in a different way.

“Yeah, that’s jetlag for you,” he grimaces in sympathy. “She says she doesn’t feel tired yet,” he tells the others.

“You should-- take her to your studio or something,” says Hoseok, oddly intent. “You had stuff to do still, right? She can just hang out with you till she gets sleepy and wants to head back.”

Namjoon would, honestly, love to do that. He’s never met anyone quite like Halsey; she’s brash, but also sweet, a spitfire wrapped up in a tiny, cute little package, and he’d like nothing more than to get to know her better and… and maybe more.

But he’s seen the way Halsey has been looking at Hoseok all night. She likes  _ him. _ And Hoseok is clearly interested too. His crushes can be seen from space, as they all like to tease him. But-- and Namjoon doesn’t know why-- they rarely seem to work out. Maybe because Hoseok is the suffer-in-silence type, but it’s hard to say. Either way, in a situation this perfect, where the feelings he can clearly see on Hoseok’s face and in his manner are pretty obviously reciprocated, Namjoon is willing to step back.

Except he… actually can’t, he realizes awkwardly. Hoseok is great at delivering English phrases he’s memorized, but his improvisation is… a work in progress. And Halsey obviously doesn’t speak any Korean beyond the guidebook phrases that she proudly showed off to them earlier.

Maybe… he thinks. Maybe he can take Hoseok and Halsey somewhere together, and see how they do with minimal interference, and then excuse himself.

All these thoughts pass through his mind in an instant, and after only a brief pause he says to Hoseok, “I could use your advice on the guide, it’s not coming together quite right, why don’t you come along too?” which is not… totally true, but it’s not like he’d ever turn away advice. And while Hoseok is still blinking at him, opening his mouth like he wants to say something, Namjoon turns to Halsey. “Me and Hoseok--” and that feels a little weird, Hoseok is almost always  _ J-Hope _ in English, but that doesn’t feel right at this moment either-- “we were gonna head to my studio for a little bit, before we call it a night. You could… come?” he offers. “We could show you around a bit and you can stay with us until you want to go back to the hotel.”

Halsey cocks her head a little at him, like a puppy hearing a high-pitched noise. Her eyes flick from him to Hoseok and back. Maybe she’s wondering if Namjoon is trying to contrive a circumstance for her and Hoseok to be alone. Well, he doesn’t particularly care if he’s transparent, as long as he can give Hoseok a fighting chance at something good.

Halsey looks over at her manager, clustered with theirs by the small counter bar at the far end of the lounge (still totally within hearing distance, it’s not  _ that _ big of a lounge). The manager shrugs. “Fine by me,” he says. “As long as you have the number of the car company when you’re ready to go.”

“We could also take her back,” Namjoon says. “If that’s easier. We have… dedicated drivers.” He feels a little embarrassed saying it, like the stuck-up celebrity they all try really hard not to become, but really at this point, having drivers available at a moment’s notice has become a requirement in their hectic lives. He hopes Halsey takes it as it’s meant.

“Whatever you’re comfortable with,” says the manager to Halsey. “I’ll leave it up to you.”

Halsey bites her lip. “Are you sure I wouldn’t be in the way?” she asks Namjoon, and he thinks she sounds a little hopeful.

“There’s no possible way you could be worse than  _ them,” _ he snorts, jerking his thumb back to point at the three youngest, who shoot him questioning looks tinged with I-know-you’re-insulting-us-somehow. “We’d love to have you.”

And that’s that. Halsey’s manager leaves, as do Seokjin, an asleep-on-his-feet Yoongi, Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook, and all their managers. In short order, Namjoon, Hoseok, and Halsey are alone except for the night guards Namjoon knows are somewhere nearby, and possibly Slow Rabbit, who never seems to sleep.

“Okay,” says Namjoon. “Let’s go!” He turns to Hoseok. “My studio?” he asks, in English, pointing at himself.

“Yeah, your studio!” Hoseok confirms cheerfully, seeming to be over whatever weird mood he was in a few minutes ago. “His studio… is… bigger,” Hoseok says to Halsey, proudly.

“It has a couch,” Namjoon agrees, smiling at Hoseok. He always tries so hard. It’s endearing, and inspiring.

“Wow, a whole couch?” exclaims Halsey, with a touch of what Namjoon thinks is sarcasm (it can be hard to tell, in English). “I’m sold.”

“Great, because that’s all I have to offer,” Namjoon grins self-deprecatingly. “Right this way!” He gestures grandiosely with his arm, and Halsey, laughing, ducks under it and pulls the lounge door open. Even more grandly than him, she sweeps her arm toward the now-open doorway as if to say,  _ after you. _

“Let’s go!” whoops Hoseok, and bounces through the doorway. “Let’s go, Halsey!”

Namjoon watches him go, with a probably dopey smile on his face. Hoseok is just… so good.

He blinks and looks back at Halsey, still holding the door open. She has a thoughtful look on her face, and her eyes flick to Hoseok, a few steps down the hallway, and then back to Namjoon, almost scrutinizing.

“Come on, go ahead,” she snorts after a moment. “I don’t know where I’m going, I can’t go first.”

“Oh, right,” says Namjoon, and steps through the doorway with a nod of thanks. She follows him out, and they catch up with Hoseok.

He can’t help feeling like he’s missing something.

Hoseok is sitting next to Halsey on the couch in Namjoon’s studio, and this whole situation feels a little bit ridiculous. He  _ tried _ to bow out gracefully so that Namjoon and Halsey could be alone, but that clearly didn’t work. He doesn’t really know why he’s here, why Namjoon insisted on bringing him along to third-wheel.

Except… he feels a lot less like a third wheel than he thought he would. They’re still keeping the conversation pretty basic, all that getting-to-know-you stuff, but it’s a lot more relaxed with less people, not nearly as stressful. Hoseok finds he doesn’t have to work quite as hard to understand Halsey when it’s just them, and the English is coming easier from him, too. Namjoon seems like he’s not having to expend so much mental energy on translating, and he does actually look to be multi-tasking with the work he said he had to do.

And Hoseok… doesn’t feel left out at all. Between trading ideas with Namjoon about the guide, talking to Halsey about her hometown, and listening to her and Namjoon trade jokes that are, admittedly, a little fast for him (but are clearly said with such enjoyment, laughter bubbling underneath, that he feels let in on them anyway), he feels… part of this.

He just doesn’t know what  _ it _ is.

“Wait, so,” Halsey is saying, “is the ‘a’ in your name more like…” she hesitates. “Ugh, this feels stupid, I just don’t want to get it wrong.” She squints, thinking. “Is it more like the ‘a’ in ‘fan’?” she asks. “Or more like ‘fawn’?”

Namjoon tilts his head. “It’s kind of in between,” he tells her. “Like ‘Nahhmjoon’. But don’t worry about it!” he tells her. “You’re close enough.” He smiles.

“But I wanna do it  _ right,” _ Halsey pouts. It’s adorable.

“Just call him… Joon,” Hoseok suggests, shrugging. “Me too.” He gestures at himself, then coos, “Joonie-yahhh!” at Namjoon laughingly, and even though he thinks that English was maybe a little off, she hopefully got his point.

Namjoon flushes at little, and makes a face at him. “Oh yeah, that’s right,” he says. “Halsey, aren’t you a ‘94 liner?”

Halsey blinks at him. “A what?” she asks, bewildered.

“Born in 1994,” Hoseok supplies proudly.

“Oh,” she says, quirking an eyebrow. “Yeah, I guess I am. Why?”

“So we’re friends!” Namjoon grins. “We can be…” he hesitates. “Casual? I guess? It doesn’t totally translate in English.” He shrugs a little self-consciously.

“Use nicknames!” Hoseok pipes up, grinning.

“Weren’t we friends already?” asks Halsey laughingly.

“Same… same age friends?” Hoseok half-asks, half-says, looking at Namjoon for confirmation.

“Yeah, it’s a little different in Korean,” Namjoon explains to Halsey. “The word  _ chingu _ doesn’t just mean friend, it sometimes specifically means people who were born in the same year. So-- well, I mean, it’s a little late for a Korean lesson, maybe…”

“No, no!” Halsey says, leaning forward. “I want to know!”

Namjoon smiles, dimples popping out. “Well, you know how-- Korean has lots of formality… levels, I guess. Did you know that?”

Halsey tilts her head. “Like being polite?” she asks.

“Yeah, basically,” says Namjoon, “except it’s… part of our language. Part of the-- grammar.”

“Oh,” says Halsey, raising her eyebrows. “That sounds like a lot.”

“Yeah, kinda,” Namjoon chuckles. “But anyway, there’s rules about when you have to use different levels of speaking. But if you’re the same age, then the rules about being polite that you have to follow when there’s an age difference don’t apply.” He shrugs. “So as long as everyone agrees, you can be really casual with each other. It’s just nice.”

“Huh,” Halsey hums. “That’s so interesting, I never knew that. So you and… I’m sorry,” she says to Hoseok, “It feels really weird to call you J-Hope all the time but I’m terrified of mispronouncing your real name. It keeps tripping me up for some reason.” She makes a frustrated face.

“Hobi!” says Hoseok, pointing to himself.

“That’s his nickname,” says Namjoon, grinning fondly..

“You don’t mind if I call you that?” Halsey asks him, biting her lip. “I promise I’ll work on getting your full name right. You might have to coach me through it, though.” She smiles at him.

“Yeah!” Hoseok tells her. “All… all friends call me Hobi.” He nods encouragingly.

“So you two are the same age?” Halsey asks curiously.

“Actually,” Namjoon says, “Hobi is a little older than me, but we’re born in the same year, which is the most important thing.”

Halsey nods, thoughtfully at first, then more decisively. “Well, then,” she says, “you guys should call me Ashley. Since we’re same-age friends.” She grins a little nose-crinkling grin, and Hoseok is honestly just-- so gone for her. And then he looks at Namjoon, who is smiling in that helpless way he does when something is so cute he’s overwhelmed with feeling, and he watches almost in slow motion as Namjoon’s hand comes up to cover his mouth in embarrassment, just the way he knew it would. His feelings for Namjoon have never been this strong while he was crushing on someone else. Yet he finds himself unable to push them back. This double whammy is… a lot, to be honest. He wonders if the pitter-patter of his heart is deserving of medical attention. Surely it’s not normal to be this absolutely smitten.

Hoseok really was planning to try and find an excuse to duck out and leave Namjoon and Halsey-- Ashley, he reminds himself-- alone. But now… he’s not sure if he can. And honestly, he doesn’t really want to.

As long as they’ll have him, he decides, he’ll stay.

The car pulls up at Halsey’s hotel. She’s fallen asleep with her head on Namjoon’s shoulder, and it almost physically pains him to wake her. Hoseok looks on fondly from his other side as Namjoon gently shakes her awake.

“Wuzzgoinon?” Halsey asks muzzily.

“We’re here,” says Namjoon apologetically.

“Oh,” Halsey blinks. She yawns, undoes her seatbelt, and does a little stretch in her seat.

“Should we go in with her, do you think?” Hoseok asks Namjoon.

“I’ll ask,” says Namjoon, and does.

“Oh, that’s okay, don’t worry about it,” Halsey waves them off. “My manager texted me my room number and he said he told the concierge to keep an eye out for me. All I have to do is get my key, take the elevator, and fall into bed fully clothed.”

Namjoon snorts. “Yeah, I know that feeling,” he says. “If you’re sure?”

“Yep!” Halsey gives them each a thumbs up, then yawns again, putting a hand up to cover her mouth. “Wow,” she says. “Just woke up from a nap and I’m still tired. Probably for the best, though, since I have to be up at a normal hour tomorrow.” She rustles around in the dark for her small handbag, which she laid by her feet when they all piled into the car, and grabs it with a triumphant little noise.

“Thanks so much for keeping me company, guys,” she says. “I had a really good time. You’re both-- great.” She looks so earnest, with a touch of something else that Namjoon can’t interpret.

“You too, Ashleyyyy,” Hoseok croons, leaning around Namjoon to smile at Halsey.

She laughs, and then bites her lip, seeming to consider something. Then she wiggles herself around until she’s practically leaning over Namjoon’s lap facing him and Hoseok, and she throws herself down in between them with one arm encircling each of them. Namjoon freezes for a second. Then, slowly, he reaches his outside arm up to cradle her back (her torso is slung over his at an angle to reach Hoseok, which seems painful), and holds on tight. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Hoseok bring both his arms up to grab onto Halsey’s forearm, slung across his chest and shoulders, like he’s holding onto the safety bar of a roller coaster, which is just… so Hoseok. Their eyes meet over Halsey’s head, and maybe it’s just Namjoon and his overactive imagination but he feels like something passes between them, something soft and vulnerable and ripe with possibility.

Halsey shifts against them, and Namjoon and Hoseok disengage as she sits back up, a little shell-shocked.

“Goodnight,” says Halsey softly. Then she pops open the car door, grabs her handbag, and she’s gone.

The car shifts into gear and pulls away from the hotel entrance, and Namjoon belatedly remembers that their driver, Younghoon, has been in the car the whole time with them. He feels a flush creep up the back of his neck and spill into his cheeks.

“Just straight home?” Younghoon asks. “Not going back to the studio?”

“Yeah, straight home,” Namjoon manages, willing his blush to recede. “Thanks, hyung.”

They merge into the flow of traffic, which even at this hour never completely stops. The trailing afterimages of streetlights, shining in the dark, combined with his exhaustion blurring everything just the slightest bit, lends a sort of underwater quality to their journey. It’s as if they’re in a submarine, zipping by anglerfish in the deep. But that’s where the submarine metaphor breaks down, because Namjoon doesn’t feel weighed down or enclosed at all. Actually, he kind of feels like he could drift away. The edges of his body feel fuzzy, like listening to waves crashing on the shore, like floating at the surface of the water with your eyes closed.

“So.”

The serious, almost hesitant note in Hoseok’s voice fully jolts Namjoon from his reverie. He looks over at Hoseok, who is staring ahead at nothing in particular, brows slightly furrowed.

“What?” asks Namjoon quietly.

Hoseok’s brows furrow a little more. “... Well,” he finally says after a moment, “what was all that?”

“Uhhh…” says Namjoon, “we were… hanging out? With Hal-- with Ashley,” he corrects himself. That will probably take a while to stick.

Hoseok huffs. “Obviously,” he says. “But like, not that I wasn’t happy to spend time with her, and with-- you,” and Namjoon notices the halting pause there but doesn’t know quite what to make of it. “But seriously, Namjoonie-yah,” Hoseok sighs sharply, “I was trying to help you! I was trying to get you two some time alone! What possessed you to bring me along?” He doesn’t sound angry so much as bewildered, like he really doesn’t get it.

“Hoseok-ah,” says Namjoon, “I was trying to give  _ you _ some time with her! I saw the way you two were looking at each other earlier, I was gonna say I was tired or fake an urgent call or something after a bit and leave you to it, but then we were having such a good conversation I… never did…” He winces, feeling a little ridiculous.

Hoseok blinks at him incredulously. “The way the two of us were looking at each other?” he squawks. “She wasn’t looking at me, she was looking at you! That’s why I suggested your studio, I was going to just leave with everyone else!”

“I’m not socially oblivious, Hobah,” Namjoon says, raising an eyebrow. “The way you two kept just missing each other with those longing stares made me feel like I was intruding on something private.”

“Pot, meet kettle,” snorts Hoseok. “You should have seen yourself.”

Namjoon ducks his head. “Well…” he mumbles. “Okay, I’ll admit it, I like her. I think she’s interesting, and cool, and funny, and she’s just so magnetic, you know?”

“I know exactly what you mean,” says Hoseok, a complicated expression passing over his face that Namjoon can’t quite parse. “And I’m telling you, she thinks the same of you. I think you really have a shot.”

“If I have a shot, you must have a slam dunk,” Namjoon insists. “She was practically smitten.”

Hoseok flushes and does that little neck tilt thing he does, and Namjoon’s eyes are drawn to the line of his throat and the way his adam’s apple jumps as he swallows.

“... Well,” he says after a moment. “I guess I’ll take your word for it?” He sounds cautious, but Namjoon thinks he’s a least a little bit pleased. And maybe also a little bit hopeful.

“I guess that puts us in kind of a weird position, though,” sighs Namjoon. “We both like her, and she seems to, at the very least, enjoy both of our company more or less equally.”

“Enough to sit with us in a studio and talk about nothing in particular in the middle of the night,” Hoseok adds.

“It’s like a love triangle in a drama,” Namjoon says, huffing out a tired laugh despite himself. “But I don’t know which of us is the main lead.”

Hoseok snorts.

“I just wish…” says Namjoon, and then stops, because he doesn’t know what he wishes. Hoseok is looking at him, and Namjoon meets his gaze. For some reason this moment feels charged, with what he doesn’t quite know. Light passes in striated bands over Hoseok’s face from the car window, and Namjoon finds himself acutely aware of the way it slides over his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose, the way his eyes glimmer with it. He doesn’t quite know what that means either.

Finally Hoseok looks away, pursing his lips, and Namjoon feels released, as if from a spell.

“So what do you think we should do?” Hoseok asks. “If anything.”

“I guess…” says Namjoon, “just… see what happens? And follow H-- Ashley’s lead.”

“I guess that’s all we  _ can _ do,” sighs Hoseok, and Namjoon means to say something comforting and bracing but when he opens his mouth, he lets out a jaw-cracking yawn instead.

“Tired?” asks Hoseok. “We’ll be back soon, try to hold on till then and you can collapse right into bed.We can talk more in the morning, if you want.”

“Mm,” says Namjoon.

The car winds its way toward their apartment, and Namjoon feels, if not resolved… maybe settled. He doesn’t know what will happen, but as long as he has Hoseok by his side, he thinks he can get through anything.


	2. Chapter 2

**94z (3)**

_ ash: _ you guys still up?

_ joon: _ of course

_ joon: _ what is sleep lol

_hobi:_ ㅠㅠ

_ ash: _ can i come overrrr

_ ash: _ i wanna hang out

_ hobi: _ ☆d(o⌒∇⌒o)b

_ joon: _ yeah!!

_ joon: _ im in hobi’s room

_ joon: _ 1023

_ ash: _ (≧◡≦)

_ hobi: _ (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

_ ash: _ ╰(◡‿◡✿╰)

_ hobi: _ ヽ( ´ ∇ ｀ )ノ

_ ash: _ ~(^з^)-

_ joon: _ wow

_ joon: _ i feel like i just witnessed an incredible feat of communication

_ ash: _ lmao

_ joon: _ come over if you want to actually talk in person (ಠ_ಠ)

_hobi:_ 그게 뭐야 ㅋㅋㅋ

_ hobi: _ Ashley come over!

_ hobi: _ We want to see you~

_ ash: _ im getting in the car!!

_ ash: _ be there in 15

_ hobi: _ ˚✧₊⁎( ˘ω˘ )⁎⁺˳✧༚

_ joon: _ see u soon

_ joon: _ ☆*:.｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆

Ashley adjusts the strap of her shoulder bag, for the sake of having something to do with her hands, and wills herself not to let her nerves get the better of her. The numbers on the elevator tick up until she reaches the tenth floor, and then with a quiet ding the doors slide open.

She immediately knows she’s on the right floor by the large number of stoic-looking Korean men peppered all over the hallway. The one closest to the elevator, who Ashley is fairly certain she’s met before but whose name she can’t recall for the life of her, gives her a little nod. So either Joon and Hobi told their security she was coming, or it’s just become expected that she’ll pop up at some point whenever she and the boys are in the same general vicinity. It’s probably the first, but she kind of loves the idea that it could be the second. She suppresses a hysterical little giggle, imagining a security briefing with a picture of her face and some kind of directive to  _ not _ divetackle the tiny American, even if she surprised you by popping up when you least expected it.

“Is 1023 to the left or right?” she asks man-whose-name-she-wishes-she-could-remember.

“To the right,” he says with a ghost of a smile.

“Thanks!” she smiles back widely. He bobs his head in a little bow that Ashley has learned is kind of a cross between “you’re welcome” and “don’t worry about it”, and she goes right.

Ashley was almost expecting the room to be at the very end of the hallway-- it would suit her mood to have to walk a virtual gauntlet, with her goal looming in the distance. But actually it’s only 2 doors down, and she takes a deep breath, tells herself not to be a coward, and knocks firmly.

Hobi says something in Korean that she doesn’t catch, especially given she hears it through a door, but she assumes it’s something along the lines of “yes?” or “who is it?”

“Na-ya,” she says, loudly and probably incorrectly, but hopefully they’ll be able to tell it’s her from her voice, if not her terrible (work in progress) Korean. She does not look over at her elevator guard companion, because he’s surely laughing at her and she just doesn’t need to have that confirmed.

The door opens. “Hey, Ashleyyy!” says Hobi. Joon is right behind him, peeking over his shoulder with a wide smile and a wave. At his wrist, the bracelet she gave him, Hobi, and the others this morning sparkles like it’s lit from within. She can see Hobi’s peeking out from under his jacket sleeves. It’s weirdly surprising and emotional to see that they’re still wearing them, even though she’s been crossing her fingers they would be the whole way here. She can feel her own bracelet clinking gently against her watch, and it helps calm her down a little, reminding her that whatever happens tonight, these are two of her best friends.

“Hi!” Ashley beams. She pushes aside her nerves and throws herself in their general direction, trusting at least one of them will catch her-- it’s worked before.

And it works this time too. Hobi, who’s in front, wraps his arms around her with a laugh while Joon shuts the door, and then hugs her from behind. His arms reach all the way across to Hobi’s waist, and Ashley feels like she’s home.

They rock there for a minute, Ashley tucked into Hobi’s chest with her nose very close to his neck, trying not to overthink the fact that she’s currently Very Aware of how good he smells, and feeling Joon’s solid presence behind her, his chin resting on top of her head.

Then Joon suddenly jolts behind her with a shout.

Ashley shrieks on instinct. “What happened?” she asks, struggling to turn around.

Joon backs away, giving her a bit more room to move till she’s back to chest with Hobi and can see him better. “He-- he did that thing,” Joon tries to explain, pouting ferociously, “I don’t know the word. Where you--” he makes a wriggling, poking motion with his fingers, grimacing in adorable frustration.

“You mean tickling?” Ashley giggles. “He tickled you?”

“Is that what it’s called?” Joon asks.

“Yeah,” says Ashley, “it’s when-- EEP!” She feels hands jab into her stomach, fingers twitching. “Nooo,” she tries to say through helpless laughs as Hobi attacks her ruthlessly, “ah-- stop! I’m so-- aha-- ticklish!” She finally escapes, and joins Joon in giving Hobi a betrayed look.

“Tickling,” says Hobi proudly. “New English.”

“I’ve created a monster,” Ashley groans.

“Monster?” says Hobi, cocking his head. “But I’m so cute!” He pouts at her, eyes wide for dramatic effect.

“Hajimaaa,” Ashley says, laughing despite herself.

“You remembered!” says Joon, seeming a little surprised but pleased.

“Of course I remembered!” she tells him. “I love foreign languages, first of all, and also I want to meet you where you are, you know?” She shrugs, feeling a little self-conscious. “Obviously I’m not about to become fluent overnight, but I want to, like, do my part, I guess.”

“You don’t have to feel obligated--” Joon starts to say.

Ashley cuts him off. “I want to,” she says firmly. “Hagoshi… peo. Yo.”

Hobi snorts. “No, no,” he says. “No ‘yo’. ‘Yo’ is…” he looks at Joon. “Too polite?”

“Yeah, you don’t have to use it with us,” says Joon. “But it’s good to know! So you’re not accidentally rude to someone important. Like Jin-hyung,” he says seriously, then makes one of those barking laugh sounds that Ashley finds so ridiculous and endearing.

“Noted,” she says, finding herself giggling again. She laughs so much when she’s around Hobi and Joon that it’s kind of ridiculous. After the Boy With Luv rehearsal yesterday her cheeks actually were in pain. She didn’t tell them that, though, she likes to at least maintain an illusion that she still has some dignity left.

“Want a drink?” asks Joon. “Well, I mean, actually it’s Hobi’s room so it’s all his, but...” He makes a sheepish face.

Hobi says something in Korean, looking at her, but it’s too fast for Ashley to attempt to parse it with her very limited skills.

“He says, ah, what’s ours is yours,” says Joon, going a little pink in the cheeks, which gives Ashley a spark of hope that she’s not totally barking up the wrong tree by coming here tonight, even as the reminder of her self-imposed mission brings her nervousness roaring back.

“Oh, well in that case,” she says brightly (maybe a little too brightly), and bounces over to the minifridge with what she hopes is a cheeky grin over the shoulder and not a terrified grimace.

They get themselves settled with fancy hotel sparkling waters, sitting in a little triangle on the bed instead of trying to figure out the chair situation. 

“So what’s happened since we saw you yesterday?” asks Joon with a teasing edge to his voice. “Anything exciting?”

“Nothing much!” says Ashley. Loud. Too loud. “Um.” She takes a sip of her water, buying herself time.

“Are you okay?” Hobi asks. “You are-- nervous.” He tilts his head slightly, looking at her with concern.

Ashley sighs. “... Yeah,” she says. “I’m a little nervous.”

“Why?” Hobi and Joon ask, in tandem.

“Is something wrong?” asks Joon.

“No, not like that,” she says, and feels her nose scrunch up in a little grimace. “I just… well. First things first, I actually have something for you.” She pulls her bag into her lap from where she put it down a little ways away on the bed.

“You… have something for us?” Joon blinks. “Like a present? But… you just gave us these!” He points at his bracelet, almost accusingly. “You’ll spoil us!”

Ashley can’t help but laugh a little, and feels herself calm down just the slightest bit. “Too bad,” she tells him, and Hobi, who she can tell is listening intently. “I like giving presents, and you can just deal with it.”

Joon opens his mouth as if to protest, then closes it, shaking his head ruefully.

“So--” Ashley says, digging in her bag, “Koreans follow the Chinese zodiac for years, right? Like year of the monkey, year of the tiger, all that.”

Joon says something quick to Hobi, who makes an “ahh” sound. Then he nods at Ashley, looking a little confused. “Yeah, we do,” he says, “why?”

“Well,” she mutters, rooting around because apparently her bag turns into a black hole the moment it’s actually important that she find something inside it, “since we’re all born in ‘94, that makes us all year of the dog, right? So-- aha!” She finds the small velvet pouch, buried in a corner halfway under the inner lining of her bag, and pulls it out in triumph. “So I had these made.” She shakes the pouch gently. “Hand, please,” she orders in their general direction, unknotting the drawstring.

It’s Hobi who puts a hand out expectantly, while Joon looks on. Ashley takes a deep breath, reminds herself that this isn’t even what she was nervous about and that all the boys of BTS are some of the most vocally appreciative gift receivers she’s ever met, and tips the contents out into Hobi’s waiting palm.

“Oh--! Wow!” Hobi exclaims, letting Joon see too. “Namjoon-ah, igeo--” he says, followed by… something else. Ashley tries not to be too frustrated at the fact that the extent of her Korean ability is being able to recognize names and the word ‘this’ and apparently nothing else.

“Oh my god, are these dogs?” Joon asks, practically bouncing on the bed as Hobi continues to make excited noises. Ashley feels a wide smile overtake her face, dispelling the fear that they would hate them or just act happy to placate her.

“Yeah!” she says. “I had them made to match with the bracelets, so these are also made of white gold and the eyes and nose are made of the same diamonds. There’s a little ring so you can hook it onto your bracelets, like a charm. If-- if you want to,” she shrugs, trying to seem casual.

“There’s three,” Joon half-says, half-asks.

Ashley fights with herself not to look away. “Well… I wanted us to have something that-- the three of us could share,” she manages to say relatively evenly, looking between Joon and Hobi. “Since we were all born in 1994 together, and all that.”

“I love it,” says Hobi exuberantly. “So cute!” He picks one out of his palm and holds it up to the light, admiring it.

“Can I put them on you guys?” Ashley asks.

“Oh, please!” Joon says, immediately thrusting his braceleted wrist at her. “Thank you so much, these are so amazing.”

“Amazing!” agrees Hobi.

“I’m glad you like them,” Ashley murmurs, feeling her cheeks heat. “Here, let me just--”

It takes a bit of fiddling to work out how to get the charm onto Joon’s bracelet, but she figures it out. Then she moves on to Hobi, and it’s much quicker this time. Ashley looks up from where she was hunched over Hobi’s outstretched hand, and catches Joon looking at the two of them with an expression on his face that she would almost describe as-- soft. Maybe even a little vulnerable.

“I’ll do yours,” he says lowly, scooping the last charm out of Hobi’s free hand. As Joon carefully cradles her wrist and holds the bracelet still with one hand, attempting to hook the charm on with the other, Ashley is a little overwhelmed by the proximity of his face to hers and the look of concentration that furrows his eyebrows. He’s biting his lip, and Ashley finds herself almost unable to look at him, like staring into the sun.

She looks at Hobi instead, and maybe the suddenly-serious mood is contagious, because he has his eyes on Joon, a little bit fond, a little bit longing. Then he seems to sense her gaze, and now he’s looking at her exactly the same way. Ashley has no idea what expression her face is making right now, but she stares back, caught like a fly in amber.

“Done,” Joon says, quiet. He sits up, but doesn’t move back. They’re all close together now, knees touching.

_ It’s now or never, _ Ashley thinks.

“I-- actually wanted to talk to you guys about something,” she nearly whispers.

“Talk?” asks Hobi in a low voice. “About what?”

Ashley musters all her courage.  _ This is what you came here for, _ she reminds herself.  _ Just do it. _

“I have to… confess something,” she says.

Hobi blinks rapidly a few times, a look of shock that kind of surprises Ashley-- she hasn’t even really said anything yet-- passing over his face. Joon shoots him a bit of a quelling look.

“Confess what?” he asks gently.

Ashley takes a deep breath. “That I…” She feels her jaw clench, and almost thinks she won’t be able to get the words out. But she sees Joon and Hobi looking at her, faces open, waiting without judgment for what she has to say, and that’s enough to push her over the edge.

“I like you,” she says, plainly, and doesn’t let her embarrassment or her fear stop her from looking at them as she says it.

There’s a stretch of agonizing silence. Hobi and Joon sit there, staring at her, and then they trade glances with each other, seeming lost. Ashley starts to panic a little.

“Um, both of you, to be clear,” she says, talking too fast, but she can’t really stop herself. “I like you both. I’m sorry if that’s weird, or not normal, and I don’t know-- god, I mean, you might have girlfriends, maybe we’re just not the kind of friends who talk about things like that, and also I thought for a while that maybe you two had something going on, but now I’m not so sure,” and she sees Joon’s mouth fall open at that, though Hobi looks more confused than anything and Ashley feels bad that he probably can’t understand her word vomit but apparently this is just what’s happening right now, “and I could totally be butting in where I’m not wanted and you already have each other, I have no idea, and I’m sorry if this complicates things and I promise not to let it get in the way of our friendship if you don’t feel the same way but I just-- I just needed to tell you,” she shrugs, curling in on herself a little. “I needed you to at least know.”

Joon stares at her for long enough that Ashley starts to wonder if she broke him somehow.

“So--” he says after a moment. “You, you like me. And him,” he flicks a glance at Hobi. “Both of us? At the same time?”

“Yes,” whispers Ashley.

“And you thought the two of us were together?” he asks, seeming a little incredulous and maybe even a bit scared.

“It was just something I wondered sometimes,” says Ashley hesitantly. “When I thought about telling you how I feel, I sometimes worried that I’d be forcing myself into a good thing and ruining it. Or… when I was feeling a little more optimistic, I would hope that if you two  _ were _ together maybe you’d be more open to-- to the idea of me liking you both.” She bites her lip and looks away. It’s not that she expected this to go smoothly-- even normal confessions between only two people can be hard and awkward-- but she feels so tense she could explode. And it’s hard to think things are going well, when Joon barely seems able to get a word out.

“Um, hold on one second,” he tells her, eyes wide. “I feel like this is-- kind of important, so…” He turns to Hobi, opens his mouth, closes it, shakes his head slightly, and then starts talking in Korean. Hobi snaps to attention, listening intently. Ashley catches her name several times, and at one point Joon gestures between himself and Hobi several times. She’s watching Hobi’s reactions carefully, and interestingly, she can see him stiffen up and almost rear back slightly.

Joon notices too. He stops his explanation, and says something that Ashley is pretty sure means “what’s wrong?”

Hoseok sighs and looks away, leg jiggling nervously. Then he mutters something that, whatever it is, makes Joon raise his eyebrows in either confusion or shock, she can’t tell which.

He says something short, a question. Hobi buries his face in his hands. Ashley feels like she’s watching a tennis match, ball flying back and forth, leader unclear.

“Ashley is…” says Hobi suddenly, in English, face still in his hands. “Not, right. Half right?” He sighs a little shakily.

“Half right?” she asks. “What do you mean?”

“We are not… dating,” Hobi says, raising his head enough to make a small gesture at Joon so that she knows what he means. “But… I… I like him.” His face slams back into his hands, and he makes a small whimpering sound.

Joon looks shellshocked. He’s looking at Hobi like he’s never seen him before. “How long?” he asks, faintly.

Hobi mutters something into his hands.

Joon’s mouth drops open. “But--” he says. “We’ve known each other for, like, eight years…”

Hobi looks up at Namjoon, face fire-engine red, and nods slowly.

Ashley suddenly feels acutely like she’s intruding on something deeply private. “I think maybe I should go,” she says, trying to be cool and collected and a good friend, not a hot mess who just dumped months’ worth of accumulated feelings on the laps of two people who clearly have more important interpersonal issues to deal with.

“Wait, no,” Joon nearly shouts. “Please, don’t go.”

“But, I mean,” she says, “it seems like you have something to work out between the two of you.” She’s really trying to hold it together, but the urge to flee and find a place to cry out her feelings at the unsaid rejection are--

“Ashley,” says Joon. “Yes, I think Hobi and I probably have to talk, but…” he shakes his head, almost disbelievingly. “I think we have to tell you something too.”

“Tell me what?” she asks, feeling her eyes dart between them. She’s whispering again.

Joon reaches over and takes one of her hands in both of his. Hobi, after a moment, does the same. Ashley feels a shock like being doused in a bucket of ice water, traveling like a shiver along every nerve ending in her body.

“You’re so much braver than we are,” Joon murmurs, looking at her hand, the hand with the bracelet, cradled in his. “The truth is,” he says, “Hobi and I have both liked you for a long time.”

Ashley looks at him in blank disbelief. “You-- what?” she stammers.

“Yeah,” Joon hums, “since we met up in Seoul to talk about the song, probably. I remember we talked about it after, in the car.”

“I thought,” says Hobi carefully, “you like him. He thought, you like me.”

“If we were even right about you liking either of us,” Joon adds a little sheepishly.

“So…?” Ashley prompts them, still dazed.

“So, we kinda decided to wait and see if you… confessed to one of us,” says Joon, now definitely sheepish.”We both liked you, but we also both wanted each other to… be happy…” and he glances almost unconsciously at Hobi as he says that, with a strange look in his eyes almost like having a thought on the tip of your tongue or feeling like you’re forgetting something important.

“Anyway,” he shakes himself, “you never really singled one of us out. I mean, we both felt that we were, mm, better friends?” he shakes his head, dissatisfied, “differently friends? than how you are with the rest of the members. But, I guess we kind of just assumed after a while that we were wrong about what we had thought you might want, and we decided to forget about it and just be good friends to you. Or at least, I did,” he shrugs.

Hobi nods and says something to Joon.

“Yeah, Hobi felt the same,” Joon tells her.

“Wait,” says Ashley, “hold up. So what you’re telling me is, you both like me back? Both of you?”

“Yeah,” Hobi says, with a small smile flickering at the corners of his mouth. “We like you too, Ashley.”

“Oh my GOD.” She pulls her hands out of theirs, and in her haze of adrenaline, she watches her own hands reach out and slap them each on one shoulder. It’s more a tap than a hard slap, really, she doesn’t have the right angle for something that would hurt, but they still look at her with almost comical shock.

She doesn’t let herself dwell on it. “I can’t believe you made  _ me _ do all the work!” she cries. “I was so nervous! I was terrified! Look, I’m shaking!” She holds her hands up for their inspection, and they’re trembling. She feels a hysterical laugh bubble up in her throat.

“I’m sorry!” says Joon, echoed by Hobi, and in their defense they do look it. “We didn’t want to pressure you, or make you feel like you had to choose…”

“I don’t want to choose,” Ashley says. “I know it’s not, well, traditional, but I like you both. I want to date you both. It’s not an either/or situation, for me.”

“I-- yeah,” says Joon. “I know what you mean. Which is funny, because it didn’t even occur to me as a possibility until tonight.”

“But…” Ashley asks, feeling a sense of hope that she grabs onto and holds tightly in her heart. “You’d be open to it?” She looks at Joon, then Hobi, and she knows her eyes are wide and maybe a little pleading.

Joon and Hobi have a brief conversation that Ashley really tries her best to follow, but she doesn’t make out many words other than ‘I’, ‘you’, and ‘together’. Hobi puts a hand on Joon’s arm, and Joon looks at it, then back up at Hobi, with soft eyes. Slowly, he nods. And Hobi smiles like the first ray of sunlight on the ocean at dawn, a bright and dazzling daybreak after a long night.

He turns to Ashley, leaving Joon still reeling from the force of that smile. “Yes,” he says simply. “We want… to try.”

“If you’ll let us,” adds Joon. “Seems like maybe we’re kind of idiots. I don’t know why you put up with us.”

Ashley feels a rush of happiness and relief so strong, it’s like a physical blow to the heart. “You can be my idiots,” she says fiercely, and launches herself at them with open arms.

They hug for a long time.

It’s so late when Ashley leaves the hotel that it’s early. She’s exhausted. But with every heavy step she takes, and every tired swing of her arms, the little dog charm on her bracelet jangles cheerfully, and Ashley knows she would do it all again.

Her phone vibrates in her pocket, and she pulls it out.

**94z (3)**

_ joon: _ goodnight~

_ hobi: _ good night!! (❁´▽`❁)*✲ﾟ*

_ joon: _ sweet dreams

_ ash: _ goodnight

_ ash: _ my boys <3


End file.
